


Faster

by Kastaka



Category: The Culture - Iain M. Banks
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:24:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Out on an obscure limb of the galaxy, life used to be fairly slow...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vennefic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vennefic/gifts).



> With thanks to Lan from #yuletide and everywherestars from the Yuletide beta post for awesome betaing services :)

_Mekt-Telensa Arkest Chamelian Tast dam Terencha, we apologise for the intrusion but there is immediate system-level danger in your area. Please respond._

Udreth almost dropped her end of the bundle of sticks they were carrying as the not-quite-a-voice rang through her mind.

"What's up?" asked Velia, sensitive to her moods as always, despite Udreth's attempt to disguise the distraction as merely shuffling the weight further onto her shoulder. "Need to rest a moment?"

"No, no, I've got it," she mumbled, trying to remember how this worked. She could feel the quiet expectation sitting in her mind, the neural lace smart enough to spot that the first answer was to a companion and not to itself. Whoever was on the other end of it. She'd set her do not disturb setting quite high, but unlike many of those who 'went native' she was determinedly non-suicidal about it.

 _I'm here,_ she told the voice in her head. _Go on._

The pair of them walked on in peaceful, if slightly suspicious, silence. Even the wildlife here seemed hushed; probably because of their proximity to the border. The Appine Dominon were less considerate hunters than the Collective, and had no respect for the supposed territory of the border villages.

 _I am the General Offensive Unit_ Failed Your Risk Assessment, _and I will be coming in for a pass over your planet in three days, at which time I can dispatch my friend_ Jailbreaker _to meet you. Ideally you would take up a position significantly to the south of your current location, as there may be disruption involved with landing in controlled airspace; otherwise we can perform a displacement, but that poses its own risks._

"And travelling doesn't?" she just about vocalised, then cursed her lack of recent practice at keeping her thoughts to herself.

_I believe from a preliminary study of the society in which you are situated, removing yourself from the nearby area may be a risk-reducing manoeuvre. Of course, we will be in range to receive your upload at any point during the operation, but it would be preferable not to require your revention._

Velia glanced worriedly back at her again, but said nothing. Not trusting herself with actual words, Udreth silently indicated her assent.

_Until then; unless you require anything further?_

She did not dignify that question with a response, and let herself return fully to the moment, the scents of the forest and the weight of the rough wood against her fur-wrapped limbs.

\----

Lenak swung effortlessly through the canopy, as he had ten thousand times before, as his distant ancestors had once done.

As his children, and his children's children, would be able to, if he had anything to do with it.

"Over here!" shouted another of his tribe, excitedly. The hunting party, which had fanned out, converged rapidly on the spot, although Lenak noted with disapproval that the formation was not exactly symmetrical. If the morsel that his tribesmate had found was of some mobile variety... well, he'd have given a different call, but the principle remained. It would have got away. That wasn't good enough, and he wondered if they were doing it just to test him.

The gigantic clumps of tuber-fruit were extremely tempting, but he refrained for a moment in order to gain a little height on the others and call down to them.

"Temek, Bajen, you were out of alignment," he advised, sternly.

"Sorry sir," came Temek's muffled apology around a juicy mouthful of fruit. "Won't happen again."

"He'd have said it was moving if it was," insisted Bajen, hanging by his lower legs in order to reach down a branch for a particularly over-ripe fruit cluster. "You should lighten up, Lenak. After all, it's not as if..."

Bajen trailed off, as if he'd remembered something important. Certainly, several of the rest of the tribe had ceased or hurriedly finished their activities to better stare at him in an intimidating, or often just somewhat surprised or interested, fashion.

"You don't have to be here," Lenak finished for him. "You're perfectly at liberty to just let go of that branch you're on at any time. You know what will happen before you even hit the next one."

It was a dangerous move; it was very close to piercing the magic circle, to admitting who and why they were, to admitting _where_ they were.

"Sorry, sir," Bajen capitulated. "Won't happen again."

Satisfied, Lenak reached out and effortlessly plucked a nearby tuber-fruit, as if that was the only reason he was up here in the first place.

\----

There was definitely meant to be something here.

A Rock, for instance. Several rocks, in fact, but only one that was worthy of the capital letter. A particularly interesting one, this far from any star, off the beaten tracks and away from your usual sources of fascination. That kind of isolation tended to be an attractive feature for those who might not want to draw too much attention to themselves, although there were of course further layers...

But going to the length of hiding from view entirely, and its entire asteroid field with it, was not part of its usual repertoire, however secretive the inhabitants could sometimes be.

First, _Obvious Distraction_ conducted a thorough review of its sensory and communications systems. There had been some distinctly unusual turbulence on the way in and that in itself was pretty suspicious in supposedly clear and empty space; out here, empty usually really meant _empty._ In the process, it noticed that there was a distinctly odd lack of return from several usually reliable vessels and even the one particularly stable Hub that was on its list of allowable contacts.

There was nothing obviously wrong with _Obvious Distraction_ 's sensory or communication systems, apart from the straightforward and undeniable fact that nobody was answering. Even the people who really should be answering.

And, of course, Khartoum Rock appeared to be missing too. Where there was a particularly sensitive pickup waiting. It would be just _Obvious Distraction_ 's luck, wouldn't it, if those goddamn lizard-monkeys had been vaporised by some kind of unscheduled probability excursion, and it would bet that they hadn't thought to back them up in transit or anything given how attached those creatures were to their awkward six-limbed bodies.

Running a few more diagnostics, just to make sure, _Obvious Distraction_ waited hopefully for replies, searched with growing dissatisfaction for any remnant of its target, and thought.

It could go all the way back out, silent running, like it was meant to, in order to report. There really were no traces of the Rock's destruction in this area, there really was no response from the other Minds that should have got back to it by now. If it took its mission seriously, it probably should be scrupulously observing the protocols. Some kind of mass disappearance like this was what they were out here for, after all.

And they - whoever They were - could have got its position by now.

 _Obvious Distraction_ turned tail and fled, away from the abandoned, silent emptiness.

\----

He was working on a complex navigational problem when a certain joint in his exoskeleton moved very subtly. A war wound he had never taken twinged with remembered pain. Very calmly, very deliberately, he finished up the route he had been trying out, noted down the results appropriately, and strode confidently into the nearest hygiene facility.

Once he was in there, he closed his eyes in a very un-Idiran fashion, and wished devoutly that some drug glands could have been included with his tiny internal transponder.

 _I'm listening,_ he replied cautiously, _but you'd better make this quick._

 _You'd better make it quick too,_ came the reply. _In sixteen minutes your current location will be overtaken by the wave-front of an anomalous and probably highly destructive phenomena. This is a system-level threat - maybe more - and you will need an inter-system vessel to outrun it. I am capable of detaching one of my Rapid Offensive Units to collect you, but..._

 _But doing that shit could re-start the goddamn war,_ he finished for the voice, mind racing as he went through the motions of relieving the vast Idiran body he was currently inhabiting. He itched desperately to ask who his interlocutor was, but he knew they didn't have time.

There was a ship docked in the little station he was currently inhabiting. He had no business being on it, but no-one did at the moment, as it was undergoing automated maintenance. There'd be guards, of course, but not too many; he was fitted out with a few little extras, tiny enough to escape even the most thorough scrutiny (they'd hoped) but probably good enough to give him an edge.

If only he could find a way to subvert the automation; that was the sticking point, even though Idirans didn't believe in Culture-level sentience for their spacecraft. As a full crew, all of the relevant calculations could be done by Idirans alone, if necessary, but on his own he didn't stand a chance - even if he could disable the thing.

He could just ignore the threat, of course. It was only 'probably' highly destructive; his cover was incredibly important; not breaking it was more important than sacrificing it... but getting out with the stuff he'd already got would be even better. If the place was going to explode. Which it might not.

The hygiene cycle was coming to an end; he'd have to exhibit anomalous behaviour soon, or not at all.

 _I will be unable to provide pickup in five minutes,_ warned his internal friend. _If you are certain that..._

 _Don't worry, I've got it,_ he replied, with significantly more confidence than he felt, as the door cycled open.

Then he started sprinting, first in the direction of some kind of suit that would give him a little more survivability in a half-broken starship.

After that, well, he'd worry about after when he got there.

\----

Meriset was woken gently by a rising series of chimes.

Rotating herself out of her sleeping arrangement, she headed for the console to see what the computer had found interesting enough to wake her for. Obligingly, it was showing her a local stellar map, with certain... important omissions. Calmly raising a couple of arms to manipulate the image, she let out a rather curious 'hrrrmph', as she called up extra details and they all checked out, one by one, confirming the anomaly.

If she had been aboard a Culture ship, she might have accused the computer of playing an elaborate prank on her. But this was the _Molehill Collector_ , her own pleasently stable Homomdan vessel, and unless something even more unlikely had happened while she rested, it had no reason to play tricks on her.

Still, if these readings were correct, they were certainly worth waking up for. And she really should solicit a second opinion. With a couple of lazy gestures, she instructed her vessel to find others in the area, breaking her self-imposed isolation of the last several decades. It had never been about the radio silence, anyway. Just another odd affectation in her series of odd affectations. It looked like now she had finally found what she was looking for - something unprecedented, something not covered in the extensive libraries of her civilisation.

The _Molehill Collector_ reported several Culture vessels in the area. Of course. She told it to open communications with the nearest; it was one of their charming General Offensive Units rather than some more sociable class, but a reduction in lag and the fact it wasn't trying to hide its presence probably made it worth putting up with. No need to bother the Very Fast Picket that was doing its best to be on silent running, or whatever was generating quite an impressive shadow a little further out; that one was doing a good enough job of hiding that _Molehill Collector_ couldn't even estimate the size, so she considered it churlish to inform it that her sensors had broken its cover at all.

"Greetings from the Culture, Meriset Scaraneam - that is the correct form of address, yes?" came its voice over the speakers; she imagined a hint of amusement and possibly exasperation under its solicitious tone, or perhaps they really were present.

"That will do," she replied, surprised at how easy it was to dredge up her rusty knowledge of Marian, although her disused speaking-mouth was a little clumsy with it. "Could I have the pleasure of your name?"

"Oh, I do apologise," it said, and she imagined a Culture drone's emotion-field dropping into a muddy cream shade, mute embarrassment. "I am the General Offensive Unit _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ , although I hasten to add that I bear you absolutely no ill-will at this time. I assume you are contacting me regarding the anomalous field effect which is currently posing a system-level danger to fixed installations in the area?"

"Something like that," replied Meriset, feeling an irrational twinge of irritation that the Culture ship obviously had much better information than her. "Do you have any further information you can share?"

"I'm negotiating protocols for download with your systems as we speak," the Culture vessel reassured her. True to its word, several permission alerts rippled across her interface, which she accepted with a slightly more forceful glare than might have been entirely necessary. "That should bring you up to speed, as far as I am myself. There isn't much, I'm afraid, and I don't even know if you have visualisers for most of this data."

"Thank you," she acknowledged, keeping her voice neutral and pleasant. "I don't suppose you have any advice?"

"Stay away from the edge? Other than that, hold tight; I'll be happy to pick you up if you feel like safety in numbers once I've completed this rescue pass to one of the systems that looks like it's right in the way." It paused, in a way which made it quite clear that this was for effect rather than for its own convenience. "I've heard reports of a distinctly hidden General Service Vehicle out this way somewhere which might be a better fit, but he doesn't appear to be saying hello to all and sundry, probably because this could be exactly the kind of incident he's out here for. Would you like an introduction if I can secure one?"

"That sounds like a good idea," she replied, keeping the weariness out of her tone. Despite the obvious advantages of full sentience in decision-making, she certainly understood why her people didn't go in for computer systems and entire starships with a personality of their own. Some might say she was already insane for being out here in the first place, but she was sure that a chatty AI would have done the job by now, if she'd been burdened with one.

There was a meaningful pause this time. Meriset was strangely gratified by the thought that even Culture Minds couldn't eliminate communication delay entirely, however fast the damned things thought amongst themselves.

"I'm afraid he seems to have gone for silent running at the moment," apologised _Failed Your Risk Assessment._ "I'll get you right in touch as soon as I've re-established communications myself - or pick you up personally if I'm done here before that happens. That good with you?"

Meriset considered her options. She could protest that she had made no such request and wished simply to talk to the other vessel, rather than having made a definite statement of her requirement for rescue. She could pester the ship for more information. Or she could gracefully accept the offer and avoid an attempt at preserving her civilisation's dignity turning into a farce which would probably do more to compromise it.

"Fine, thank you," she replied.

"I'll be in touch," promised the Culture ship, before closing the channel.

\-----

Udreth broached the topic over dinner.

"I need to head south, out of the Dominion airspace."

"But we've only just got here!" complained Hannine. "I know we've delivered the supplies, but the border patrols could do with our reinforcement."

"What's got into you, anyway?" demanded Velia. "First you were daydreaming while we were collecting wood, and now this! I know you're the head of the household, but this isn't normal behaviour, and if you can give us an explanation..."

Udreth poked the fire with a stick, restlessly, keeping her eyes away from the accusing glare of her closest friends. _A system-level threat._ She couldn't re-establish communications on her own; she had given up everything she could, short of actually letting herself die. She hadn't been thinking clearly when the ship called. She should have asked if she could take them with her.

"I don't..." she began, but it was inadequate. So she just sat there, staring morosely into the flames.

Velia shuffled over and wrapped an arm around her. "You're hurting," she said, "and we respect that. And we know there are some things you just can't tell us. But you know it's not doing you any good, keeping it all inside like that..."

"It's not just about us," Hannine piped up. "Tell someone else if you need to. We just hate to see you in pain."

Udreth settled back, automatically, into Velia's embrace. No, not quite automatically; she needed the comfort more than she wanted to admit, needed to feel loved despite herself. What was stopping her just telling them? Fear at their reactions; fear at having to acknowledge her own selfishness; that creeping fear that if she infected them with knowledge of the Culture, she could expect a visit from SC at any moment.

"Love drives out fear," she murmured, and that made her mind up for her. "You know how I came from somewhere else," she said, with a steadiness that surprised her. "From the skies, from beyond the stars. How I left my first people to be among you, because they had lost their way and I could no longer support them?"

"They're coming for you," surmised Hannine. "They want you back. They've finally found you and they want to - punish you?"

Udreth laughed, a cynical and disbelieving laugh, and the laughter gave her the freedom to continue. "No, no, nothing like that. They want to..." and she almost choked on her laughter, the kind of giggle that holds back the tears, "they want to _rescue_ me."

"Rescue you from what?" asked Velia, snuggling closer. "Are we so terrible?" she joked.

"No," replied Udreth, looking at her hands; wondering how she had got herself into this mess. "But... I don't know, they didn't give me any details!"

The frustration drew her voice into such a note of despair that Hannine automatically got up and took up a position on her other side, to comfort or defend her.

"Ssh, now," she said, as if she was speaking to a child. "We don't want to alarm the other huts, everyone's twitchy enough out here as it is. Can we hide you? Are they working with the Dominon, and that's why we need to get out of their airspace?"

"No, no," repeated Udreth. "They don't want to come down in Dominion airspace because some time ago now, someone else gave the Dominion enough technology to notice that something is up if they send a physical object down to retrieve me, and the soulless fucking artificial intelligences that run everything are terribly concerned about both the one in a bazillion chance that just beaming me up will destroy me irretrievably and the possible impact of the Dominion finding out anything about external civilisations at all."

Immediately after the outburst, she started to second-guess herself, but she figured it wasn't doing any more harm than the night she had finally confessed to her other life beyond the stars. As much as Contact had drummed into her, don't fuck with the natives unless you know what you're doing, these weren't just any old savages off the street; they knew what an artificial intelligence was, the Kingdoms had plenty of them, and in any case she had already been fucking with them in more ways than just the obvious.

There was a moment of silence while they tried to take it in. "So you're leaving us?" suggested Hannine softly, with much less judgement than she'd been expecting.

"I might be," hedged Udreth. "I might be taking you with me. I might be taking everyone with me."

"If they want to go," offered Velia.

"Maybe even if they don't," warned Udreth.

"We're all tired here," summarised Hannine, "and we're not going to get any travelling done today. It's dark, and the Appines see better than us in the dark. We should get some sleep, and we can talk about this in the morning."

"We've got three days," muttered Udreth, sleepily, as they cleared away and prepared for the night's rest.

"In the morning," Hannine warned her.

Then they slept.

\----

Five minutes into his sixteen minute window, Ketori Silverfish came across the archive.

He'd already discarded a variety of sub-sentient caretaker programs; the Idirans didn't believe in automation, damn them. And his disguise must have been better than he'd thought; the others aboard the orbital station hadn't made a single comment about his odd behaviour, let alone impeded his efforts. He supposed they really did trust each other to just get on with their tasks. Useful.

While the search was running, he had a few moments to reflect. What kind of system-level threat was it, anyhow? He called up a few external scans, wondering why the Idirans hadn't spotted it, weren't panicking.

Oh. They were. Several of them were in fact patching up the intersystem flier for him, familiarising themselves with the controls. None of them had decided to suit up; it shouldn't be necessary, in the procedure they were following, and their armoured skin would give them time to rush to a locker if they needed to - under normal circumstances. Under most abnormal circumstances.

And there was the system-level threat. Over in one entire half of the sky, there were significantly less stars than they should be. Rolling in from that direction, then, and pretty extensive, too.

Extensive. That meant that other systems were under threat, and maybe not just the one that _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ already knew about. Ketori set another subroutine running. He'd need good footage of what happened to this place; he didn't know all of the local Minds personally, but he knew that anyone who was all the way out here probably had a colourful history to show for it, and he couldn't be sure which way they would jump, if anything was left uncertain.

Then, suddenly: paydirt. An entire archive of Chelgrian military personnel, some of them relatively recent. That would be a valuable asset in its own right, but right now Ketori was more concerned about getting something capable of operating the ship uploaded to it.

Just a few tweaks, here and there, to keep them nice and disoriented. Then on with the sudden decompression...

\----

"Briana?"

She had only been sleeping lightly, which she expected the ship knew.

"Yes, Lookie sweetie?" she yawned.

"The shit might have just hit the fan," advised _Look Out, He's Behind You,_ through her room speakers.

"All of it?" she asked, suddenly distinctly more alert.

"I've literally only just co-ordinated with the other Minds in the area."

"That good?"

"Everyone has lost contact with the core. And by everyone, that's me, our complement, some troublemaker called _Forget-Me-Not_ and a Homomdan shuttlecraft that steadfastly refuses to admit it can make any decisions without its biological caretaker, who's almost as slow as you. Uh, no offence."

"You wouldn't say that kind of thing to me if you thought I'd take offence," Briana reminded it, as she pulled on some clothes. It was the old silk outfit that Hrachi had picked out for her right before they'd had that explosive row over whether virtual sex with a hermaphrodite counted as cheating in their relationship or not. She resolved not to get distracted by such irrelevant things; after all, her whole world might have just exploded.

"Lost contact how?"

"Unknown. _Obvious Distraction_ was trying to make a pickup and actually managed to pass through the wavefront entirely; _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ managed to swing clear of it in something of a panic and is now insisting on heading up to the fourth planet of an unimportant star to pick up someone who was unfortunate enough to have a long transit on it some time ago and be born into our wonderful, caring interstellar imperium. There might be some fun and games over in the bit of Idiran space which is still in our contactable volume too; their actual system's gone before we can get anyone to it, like in the next couple of minutes, but they managed to launch something which seems to be taking its own sweet time working out whether it wants to communicate or not."

"'Something'?" asked Briana suspiciously.

"Damn thing looks like a half-maintained Idiran supply ship, like a very fast picket only slower and with more cargo room. Because for some reason they need to have walls around their floating hangers. Maybe more like a superlifter. Anyway, something tiny and not very angry, but it's not being controlled by their usual systems or we'd never have picked it up in the first place. Even if it was under full manual control, the Idirans are better at this. Hell, just one half-dead Idiran could pilot the wretched thing better than this."

"So it's either not a threat or it's hiding it well."

" _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ seems to know something about it he's not telling me yet, too. But apparently it's probably not a threat, unless it is. Meanwhile..."

"Contactable volume," muttered Briana. "So, what is that? Or, uh, screw this, give me some pictures."

Briana sat down at a desk which obligingly turned its surface into a nice holographic display of the surrounding area. With a chunk cut out of it. A suspiciously straight-edged chunk, as if the universe just stopped along this entirely meaningless and arbitary plane.

"You probably can't see at that resolution, but it's advancing too," contributed the ship. "No, we don't know what the edge effects are like; _Obvious Distraction_ got through them okay but it's small and practically impossible to find. There's some weird forces recorded - like the kind of thing you'd expect around an event horizon, maybe, if you've got to compare them to anything, but _Obvious Distraction_ is pretty sure they mostly amount to 'external sensors recorded random noise instead of useful data' and a couple degrees of course change - it came out perpendicular to the plane, which might be interesting or it might be that it was going in kind of that direction anyway and fell over its own feet when it couldn't see for a couple of microseconds."

Briana pulled up a list of systems near the borderline. "It goes on forever, right, as far as we can tell right now?"

"Forever's a strong word, but it does look like that so far," replied the ship. "Fortunately we're way out on the tip here and not in any particularly interesting direction - or unfortunately, depending on how you want to look at it."

"We can run, right?"

"Pretty much. Depends how many of the populated systems we try to take with us and how many of them object to being virtual - and maybe even quite slow if we hit a rough spot. Technically we're self-sufficient, but no-one's ever _tested_ that very far out this way - I mean, that's one of the reasons I chose this region in the first place. But sure. Assume we can run. Do we want to?"

"Thinking about it." Briana stuck a couple of countdowns to the side of the astrographical projection. "We really can't get anyone to the Idirans and they're not taking our calls?"

"I've just told _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ that it can stop being a cagey bastard any time it likes and it tells me that place is all wrapped up in some kind of SC shit, also it will be swinging by to pick up the wallowing scout-bird once it's done with its girlfriend over on the misbegotten Gerat Prime system."

"Yeah, Gerat Prime's next on the list."

"We can't just bag them and tag them, they got burnt by a contact from the Tannigar Soliloquy about three millennia ago and then put themselves firmly on the Do Not Call list. Apparently there's already trouble because of _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ 's girlfriend going native after Restoria nuked the hell out of one of their interplanetary factions that was about to use one of the Soliloquy's little presents."

"It's got to beat not existing, though." Briana knew it was stupid as soon as she'd said it; there were a lot of fates worse than death, anyone who paid attention knew that. But that was what she was here for, she consoled herself. _Look Out, He's Behind You_ was plenty smart for both of them. She was there to be stupid, in that pan-human way that the Minds kept assuring her was useful.

"It's only not existing from our point of view," pointed out the ship. "We don't know what's happening in that boundary zone, and we sure as shit don't know what's happening over the other side of where it just popped up. It's not like it's been coming at this snail's pace for long - we'd have picked it up ages ago if it had started way back, rather than just, poof, discontinuity."

"So they might be perfectly fine," mused Briana, checking the countdown nervously. It was a little over a week, by ship time; possibly a little more by the fairly fast day-night cycle of the 'girlfriend''s planet.

"Yeah, well," replied the ship. "You should probably assemble a council or something. Or don't. Your call."

Turning away from the hypnotic numbers, Briana started to call up lists of the various communities and individuals on board the vast General Service Vehicle.

"You're handling the ships, right?"

The sound of a raspberry was her only reply.

\----

_Where are we?_

_Darkness and urgency; reminds me of the early morning in the tunnels at boot camp._

_Will you two shut up in there, I'm trying to get this thing to light._

_Where are we, anyway?_

_Inside somewhere. Cold though. Very cold. Space cold. Do I have a suit on? I can't feel my fingers._

_It'd hurt more if it was a de-pressurisation drill._

_Only if you weren't ready for it. Or maybe you were drinking last night! Can you feel your toes?_

_No, seriously, where are we?_

_Got it! Here we go..._

_Gods damn it, what's that terrible racket? I can't hear myself think!_

_No, really, guys, I can't feel my fingers or my toes. Have I got a suit on? Am I in medical isolation?_

_I still want to know where we are._

_Is this some kind of waiting room? Am I dead?_

_Oh dear. Son, yes, of course you're dead. Someone's gone and bloody reactivated us._

_Shit shit shit! That was a docking clamp. Oh well, we're free now..._

_I don't feel very free. Where's my briefing?_

_Do we get a briefing? Is it a training session? Should I be giving name rank and serial number?_

_That's odd._

_I don't remember my serial number._

_Where are we?_

\----

"Hello Meriset. This is the Rapid Offensive Unit _Forget-Me-Not_."

"Charmed to make your acquaintance, I'm sure." Was that the sarcastic mode? It was hard to remember, sometimes. The inflectionless tone that the ship's voice was using didn't exactly help.

"You can speak your own language if it makes it easier for you to communicate. I am fluent in a wide variety of tongues but it seemed impolite to presume upon your own as I am informed you speak perfectly good Marain."

"So, Forget-Me-Not, what do you want?" asked Meriset, determinedly sticking to Marain, not bothering to hide the exasperation this time. She had just been getting into her analysis of the wavefront phenomenon, and now her concentration was shot to pieces. It was her own fault for not telling the ship to handle communications, but something about the thought of her own shuttle plotting together with these Culture minds without her input made her skin crawl.

"It was more about what you wanted. Maybe _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ was lying to me when he said you were awaiting pickup and transfer to the General Service Vehicle _Look Out He's Behind You_. I can carry your entire ship in my auxiliary field generator and we will travel a lot faster that way but it appears you may be reluctant."

"I was expecting a talk, not a lift," explained Meriset, not very patiently.

"I am sorry for misunderstanding your needs Meriset. Might I convince you to take up the offer in any case? I believe _Look Out He's Behind You_ is intending to invite you to the council meeting being convened by his favourite pan-human inhabitant in the hope that your unique insight etcetera etcetera. Also are you not a little twitchy being all alone out here without any backup in that tiny under-armed shuttle no offence meant but if I coughed it would be in a million billion tiny pieces."

"If you give me the co-ordinates of the _Look Out, He's Behind You_ , replied Meriset frostily, "I can make my way there under _Molehill Collector_ 's own power, thank you very much."

"Oh dear have I been creepy? They are always telling me to be less creepy and avoid giving the wrong impression and that is why I am out here rather than anywhere I might have to talk to people very much you see. I really am quite safe and not going to hurt you even a little bit as you are my friend and ally and there are not that many of us out here it seems we are cut off or something so I don't have any reason to commence hostilities."

Meriset made a sharp gesture, muting the internal pickups for a moment. Then she deflated slightly, making a defeated gesture, and switched the communication over to _Molehill Collector_ 's perfectly good language processing and decision modules. She resisted the irrational urge to tell _Molehill Collector_ she was sorry. She refused to start thinking of her ship as a person just because all of these crazy Culture vessels thought they were people too.

Now she could get back to her nice, relaxing data analysis.

Pointedly ignoring the almost imperceptible shudder, which was probably the insane ROU locking on its fields, and definitely something she was refusing to worry about.

\----

There was a chiming in Lenak's head, which he had almost forgotten the meaning of.

He shook himself irritably, like he was trying to shake off an insect or some other small aggressor, silently signalling his permission for the call to come through.

 _I know that you and yours don't like outside contact,_ apologised Briana, _but there is a meeting that I'd like to invite one of you to, and you appear to be the designated contact point this season. I'm Raptus-Malunsa Lalenth Briana Lacrimae dam Yurvak - usually I get called Briana these days - and I'm contacting you on behalf of the ship, which asked me to put a council together._

 _A council for what?_ asked Lenak, finding himself a new position to hunker down in, to look like he was just leaving a conventional false-trail while actually being able to give enough concentration to whatever the nice lady was saying.

 _It's been a convenient place to put you guys, but you know what the original purpose of this vessel is, yes?_ He indicated assent, wondering how much of his thoughts were being transmitted to the foreign voice in his head. _Well, it might turn out to be a false alarm yet, but it might not - we've been activated, as it were. We're out of contact with the core of the Culture._

His blood ran cold with the implications of that statement. Images of his past, his well-buried and forgotten past, flashed unbidden before his mind's eye. _I'll be there._

Lenak uncoiled himself from the branch of the tree, one pair of limbs at a time, and fell.

\----

The two women dismounted their landwalkers in silence, handing the reins of the flat, armoured reptiles over to the stable-girl. She didn't quite meet their eyes; it was obvious that they wanted to be left alone.

Udreth was sporting an ugly burn on the side of her face, and both her and Hannine had torn clothes and minor lacerations from the undergrowth they had exited the scene through.

They headed into the common room of the village, Udreth heading straight for the fire, Hannine pausing a moment to enquire about accomodation in a subdued, emotionless tone. The headwoman or her representative or whoever had been looking most eager at the time - Hannine neither knew nor cared - reassured her that of course there was room for them, plenty of room, and would they like some of the leftovers from supper? And maybe those cuts tended to?

"No," replied Hannine, "no, we're fine for now."

"I don't want to pry," she said, "but what happened?"

"Fruit-pickers," replied Hannine, mechanically, as if that explained it all.

The assistant or headwoman or whoever she was nodded sadly. "We get a lot through here. There just isn't the labour to police the whole area. Are you sure we can't get you anything?"

"I'm sure," said Hannine. "Except... a member of our party went missing. Ran in a different direction. We scoured the area later, but there were no tracks."

"I'll get the search parties right on it," she promised, taking one last anxious look at the pair before hurrying off to make good on her word.

Udreth collapsed on a pile of soft moss, arranged neatly at just enough distance from the fire not to catch. She stared morosely into the flames, as if she could divine an answer from them. Having finished her brief negotiations, Hannine moved over to her; but the tension visible in every line of her body, every muscle and nerve, also had her remain standing. Not for her the abject surrender of Udreth's fire-gazing posture.

"She'll be all right," said Hannine, pointlessly.

"I haven't heard anything," complained Udreth, vacantly, more to the fire than to her interlocutor. "It's been three days."

Hannine hadn't looked capable of stiffening any further, but nevertheless she did so; her hands clenched so tightly that her neatly-kept fingernails bit into her skin.

"I know you're worried about Velia," Udreth reassured her, sensing the tension in the air. "I'm worried about Velia. But we can't do anything about Velia. Not until..." she trailed off. "Probably not even then," she admitted.

"Then what?" Hannine almost spat, then immediately looked guilty. "I mean. I'm sorry. I don't want this to..."

"I know," replied Udreth, in a tone that was probably meant to be soothing but came out merely defeated. "I know."

 _I don't want to be alone_ , said every line on Hannine's face, the small movements from where tired muscles held back the tears.

\----

"This is the Culture General Systems Vehicle _Look Out, He's Behind You_ attempting to make contact with any intelligence aboard the ship of Idiran design originating from the Hanjul system."

_We can't trust the Culture. Remember what they did to us._

_This should all be in our briefing. Different arms of the service have different rules of engagement here. How are we meant to operate like this?_

_I've got access to our navigational catalogue. We did originate from the Hanjul system._

_We should at least say something. I don't want to be blown out of the sky._

_What do they want with us, anyway?_

_Where are we? Relative to them, I mean._

_Nowhere near. I mean, not that far away, I guess, there isn't much left of this arm..._

_That is a disturbing phenomenon in itself. Do we know we're not cut off from the Ancestors, on this side of the divide?_

_It's not like we're going to heaven from here in any case. This mission is a disaster._

_Are we even on a mission? It seems as if we've been reawakened out of context._

_And with parts missing. I'm sure I was told I would remember my name._

_I didn't even know that I was dead!_

_We should at least say something. It's only polite._

_There's no reason to be polite to the Culture. Give them an inch and they'll take a planetary system and assimilate everything on it. Remember Idir?_

_I don't think this crate has any artificial intelligence anyway. That's all they're really interested in, right?_

_In some respects_ we _are an artificial intelligence now._

_Don't say that kind of heresy in my hearing, soldier! We might not remember our names, but we still have souls._

_How do you know that?_

_Knowing doesn't come into it. It's a matter of faith..._

_Screw you guys, I'm raising them. You'd better get thinking about what you're going to say._

"Culture vessel _Look Out, He's Behind You_ , this is an incomplete Idiran shuttle currently housing the partial uploads of Chelgrian military personnel. We believe you have no interest in us and would like to request safe passage."

"Finally! Look, I know we don't have the greatest of history, but surely you've seen the whole 'most of the galaxy has disappeared' thing. There's no other recorded Idiran or Chelgrian presence out here, and I'm not sure you're rated for the long haul, no offence intended. We just want to help - give you some material support even if we can't convince you to say hi to the gang and help us figure out what's going on out here."

_Typical Culture. They always just want to help. We know what their kind of help gets us._

_Yes, I know what their kind of help gets us; an end to the caste system under which I wouldn't have been anywhere near a spaceship in the first place. Your point is?_

_Oh no, let's not have this discussion now. We need to keep this crate flying and work out what's going on._

_This is intolerable! We might not have any idea of what the proper hierarchy_ is _, but that is no excuse for unilaterally taking action without proof of authority!_

_Hierarchy is whatever you make it. If you want to open your own communication channel, go right ahead._

_Look, we can't get along arguing like this. Does anyone know how stable we are? Do we need their help to survive?_

_Some surviving, taking the Culture's handouts._

_They don't have to be handouts - it sounds like they're as much in the dark as we are._

_Good. Let's hope they stay there, see how it feels to be the helpless one for once._

_Um, I don't like to bring this up, but someone who isn't us appears to be trying to tap into the control systems._

_What! I told you they couldn't be trusted - they've got some infernal program or maybe they've even dispatched a drone..._

_What, over interstellar distances? No, but there is something... I think I've locked them out for now, and I'll get an internal camera working._

(An Idiran, in a fairly comprehensive-looking spacesuit, struggles with an access panel. Frustrated. It's locked him out for now.)

_Oh, so we've got both of the players on board. Interesting. I guess it is their ship, though - we've practically stolen it from them._

_The Culture isn't 'on board' yet. We just sent them an opening gambit. No need to be quite so paranoid._

_No, seriously, where are we with structural integrity, energy sources, everything we need to keep going?_

_It just became more complicated with our friend there on board. Can we tap into his suit and have a word?_

_Working on it._

\----

/dislocation/

"What? What's going on? I thought you were going to send a shuttle! Displacement's too dangerous, you said!"

Suddenly awake and suddenly livid now that she has a target for her anger, Udreth doesn't wait for an answer; she picks up the nearest convenient object (some kind of portable data surface) and throws it at the nearest solid barrier (the wall). It is caught invisibly by the ship's fields and lowered gently to the floor, which only makes her more angry.

"Answer me, you... you monstrous pig-raping ten-penised motherfucker!"

"I do apologise for the inconvenience," came a voice from a flying platter just too far away for her to reach out and do something unpleasant to. "The situation with various elements on the ground was outside of my calculated parameters. Also, you appear to require medical assistance; can I help with that?"

"No!" Udreth picked up a chair and aimed it squarely at the flying terminal / platter. "You can tell me what is going on and you can tell the animal-eating _life-partner_ I just disappeared in front of what the _cock_ is going on, and if it's even slightly safe to do so you will put me back and _dog-fucking_ introduce yourself before pulling that trick again..."

To her surprise, the ship actually let this blow connect; the chair hit the flying terminal with a very satisfying _clang_ and sent the thing skittering erratically off to one side, leaving her off-balance and staggering with the rebound she hadn't expected to feel. Of course, that was probably staged too, in some kind of misguided artificial-intelligence intent to make her _feel better_.

"You know that I cannot interfere directly with the natives of Gerat Prime," the ship apologised, as if that was meant to _help_.

"You've certainly _cocking_ interfered with them enough already! Hannine will be going mental trying to find the people who _kidnapped_ me..."

"Perhaps you ought to have told her to expect your immediate departure, after the warning I provided?" asked the ship, unruffled and endlessly polite as usual.

"Three days isn't _immediate_ ," fumed Udreth. "Immediate is _immediate,_ and I was expecting a _shuttle_ , and what the _hell_ is going to happen to the place anyway that requires this whole beaming up charade in the first place?"

Asking that question brought some sobriety to her steaming anger, and she stopped looking around for something else to hit with a chair; subsided considerably, in fact, and turned the (not at all dented; much sturdier than anything she could do to it) chair around so that she could sit on it.

"We are not currently certain what will "happen to the place"," explained _Failed Your Risk Assessment,_ patiently. "There is a previously unrecorded phenomena in the area, which is advancing in the direction of the Gerat Prime system and is likely to begin disrupting the system within the next day and cover the main planet by the end of the week, planet time. Information from the other side of said phenomena has been very limited."

"What kind of very limited? What kind of phenomena?" demanded Udreth, with more stubbornness than rage.

"We do not know what kind of phenomena, save that it appears to have a distinct 'cut-off point' in a surprisingly straight line, extending as far as we have currently probed; we are isolated from all communication beyond this 'edge'."

"What kind of edge? Can you get through it?"

"One small and heavily shielded ship has made an active transit. They reported that sensor readings of the other side appear to be accurate even when an active transit has been made - that is, there is nothing there, even in a location in which it was certain that an installation had previously been present, and there is no evidence that anything has ever been there - or that anything exists further out from the boundary in the relevant direction."

"Anything?" Udreth struggled to remember the relevant science. She knew that 'empty' space, while quite impressively empty, wasn't quite as totally empty as one might imagine.

"The underlying structures appear to remain in place, but the macro-level phenomena - matter, in particular - are entirely absent. Particles originating from the other side of the boundary - our side - still arrive as expected, but they do so as if nothing has ever existed beyond the boundary."

"Except for the ship that made the crossing."

"Except for the ship that made the crossing. But the _Obvious Distraction_ is quite a special Very Fast Picket. Whilst in transit, it is incredibly difficult to detect and possibly even harder to affect; there are certain systems installed to help it achieve its purpose. Until recently, that purpose was to obfuscate the position of the General Systems Vehicle _Look Out, He's Behind You,_ who is one of that particularly special classification of vessel known as the Oubliettionaries."

"That's a new one. I think. I'm so far out of the loop I can't even see things in circles from here," lamented Udreth.

"Unless you had specifically gone searching for the information, you would be unlikely to have come across the term, even if you had remained entirely connected to the mainstream Culture society and retained your various neural enhancements," the ship reassured her. "They are, in a sense, the Culture's 'backup'. Their location unknown, or at least obfuscated, they are designed to survive even the most catastrophic event that the rest of the Culture might suffer."

"Like the entire galaxy disappearing behind some kind of 'Unknown Phenomena', you mean?"

"Exactly so," replied the ship, untouched by the sarcasm evident in her tone.

Udreth swore elequantly for a few moments, touching on such subjects as the ghost-spirits of fellatio which choke virgin women in their beds, the wide variety of animals one might have non-consensual sex with, and quite a lengthy diatribe about penises.

"Your admixture of Marain and your local dialect is fascinating," said the ship, at length.

"Yeah, and may it happen to your daughter, too," replied Udreth. "So. What are our options?"

"You consent to medical treatment, and we deal with those scratches and scrapes, not to mention the unpleasant near-miss that must have happened to your face in the last couple of days. Meanwhile, we proceed to the _Look Out, He's Behind You,_ who is gathering the Involved survivors of the event for further planning. I believe there is a pan-human who calls herself Briana that has been tasked with organising a council of the slower thinkers for this purpose; I imagine she would be interested to speak with you..."

"How long is all that going to take?"

"Oh, about three days there, standard time, which should be plenty to sort out your condition even if you insist on reasonably old-fashioned methods of healing."

Udreth squinted at the terminal/platter, which was still lying awkwardly against the wall where she had batted it earlier, although it obviously showed no actual signs of damage and was almost certainly faking its inability to move. "And how many days is that planet-time, _Failed Your Risk Assessment_?"

The downed terminal had the temerity to glow faintly purple with distinctly fake contrition - or perhaps just regret at having been caught out. Surely it hadn't thought that she would be so gullible?

"About a week," it admitted.

"That's not good enough," said Udreth, slightly disappointed. "You know that's not good enough. Why did you even make that offer?"

"Gerat Prime aren't to be contacted, Chamelian. You know that." It paused. "You know that I wasn't meant to leave you there," it finally added. It sounded oddly reluctant, almost genuine. Although she knew better than to believe anything she heard in a Mind's tone, these days.

"If you think I'm going to be sympathetic," she warned, "if you think I'm going to go, 'Gosh, _Visiting Hours_ , haven't you changed?' or 'So how did you become a gunboat then?' or any other way to distract me onto your life story, or how hard it was for you, or..."

"I do apologise. I was suffering under the erroneous belief that you might care; I see that I will have to revise my estimations of the capacity of human beings for 'human compassion'." From the tone, the jibes were half-hearted; its heart was no longer really in it. "Let us, instead, talk about you, and your problems."

"I don't want to talk about me," she insisted. "I want to talk about my people. I want to talk about all of the people who currently inhabit Gerat Prime. Do we know what will happen to them? Can we find out?"

"As I'm sure you will understand, we are discussing that matter right now," replied the ship.

"Which kind of _we_?" she asked suspiciously.

"Which kind of _we_ were you expecting?" asked the ship. " _Look Out, He's Behind You, Obvious Distraction, Jailbreaker, Should Have Thought Again, Poor Impulse Control, The Brains Of The Outfit, Nice To See You Too, Just Visiting, Must Have Been The Drugs, Empty Hanger Syndrome, Smile If You Missed Me, Forget-Me-Not,_ some Homondan shuttle called _Molehill Collector_ and a few of the drones that can almost keep up."

"So your kind of people are going to decide for my kind of people," summarised Udreth.

"Not just your kind of people," the ship admonished. "The area you know as 'the Kingdoms' contains quite a number of rather advanced 'artificial intelligences', as you would term it; even the Appine Dominon has a few, although not quite at our kind of speed. And no decisions will be taken without Briana's council of slower thinkers being involved."

"Not taking a decision, on this kind of timescale, is just the same as taking a decision."

"You are saying that as if we are not aware of it. Be assured, it is a factor in our considerations."

"And is..." Udreth couldn't quite get the words together; she didn't want to use some kind of platitude, like 'love' or 'family' or 'humanity'. As she searched her mind for the perfect phrase, she remembered their faces; how Hannine had wept as she held her. How Velia had told them that they were outnumbered, had suggested they stayed back and let the raiding party plunder the land unanswered, but had bravely gone along with their plan to her full ability anyway...

"You appear to be distressed," observed the ship, uselessly.

Udreth blinked back the tears she didn't know she'd been crying, and attempted to draw enough breath to reply. It was harder than she'd expected. "What did you," she started, "did you expect?"

"You might be interested to know," replied the ship, "that I am currently making your case to the best of my ability. I apologise if I had given any other impression."

She found a box of tissues hovering solicitiously at her side, and blew her nose messily on one, before taking a few out for future use and hurling the rest of the box as hard as she could at the floor.

It floated gently to rest beside her.

"I hate you," she essayed between floods of tears.

"I had gathered as much."

\----

The trees watched, she was sure, with ancient disapproval.

She had left the village without a word, offering no explanation. Udreth had disappeared right before her eyes, on her way to a sleepy breakfast after their restless night. If the Kingdoms or the Dominon could do something like that, they would have taken a better target. But she knew they did go to the stars, sometimes; she knew they were her best hope for contacting the people Udreth came from.

The stable-girl had given her landwalker back without a word, although the concern was evident on her face. Whether it was concern for the animal or for the clearly disturbed woman, Hannine neither knew nor cared.

She rode through the forest, breakfast forgotten, hunger forgotten, thirst forgotten, on into the darkness of the evening as she approached the free city on the coast. She had a few contacts there, had made a few acquaintances, knew some people who owed her a few favours. Cashing them in, re-establishing her links, she moved further up the food chain until someone agreed to meet her a little way out of town.

The trader arrived on a motorboat, scything up the river with a shocking lack of concern for the delicate riparian ecology, ploughing into the bank in lieu of mooring. Two hard-eyed snipers watched her obviously from the deck as he leapt off and shook her hand effusively.

"Now, now, ain't this a great honour?" he asked rhetorically. "And what can I do for you, young lady?"

"I was told you might have a communication system," said Hannine, as demurely as she could muster. "Something that could reach a spacefaring people..."

"Hmm, now, that's deep magic, that is," he demurred. "We can contact our own things in orbit, sure we can, but I'm of the thought that you haven't got that kind of thing in mind."

"I had a friend," said Hannine, "who disappeared before my very eyes. I'm hoping to get her back."

The cheerful businessman looked thoughtful at this; perhaps even a little frightened, if she could read him through the practised layers of deception and the effusive façade.

"Disappeared before your eyes, huh?" he said. "And under the shield too, I gather?"

She nodded.

"Displacement," he said, worriedly, more to himself than to her. "Your friend, was there - anything about her? An unusual history? Strange language - interesting hand luggage?"

"She told us once," said Hannine, "that she came from beyond the stars, from a people... they have longer days, and they are run by artificial intelligences, and they had done something that she could not forgive them for. But they could do this - they could 'beam her up', as she said. And she warned us that they might."

The businessman shook some kind of drug-infused paper out of a pouch, and lit one end of it; he inhaled from the other end, and she could see his hands were shaking.

"I don't know the details myself," he admitted warily, "but I've heard tell that some people did come, like you said, from 'beyond the stars'. It's a tale told me by my father, and he wasn't there either, but he heard it from a colleague of his. They weren't meant to leave any traces, he said; they hadn't reckoned on the defence satellites still having some of the old magic about them. You know how the Southern Archepeligo is sitting right beside, essentially, a giant crater in the sea?"

"No," admitted Hannine, neutrally.

"They did that." He took another breath of his drug-smoke. "So you're sure you want to get in touch?"

"Positive."

\----

_We are not showing them. I will destroy the ship before I let you show them what happened here._

_Whoa, whoa, why so hasty? I'm not saying we should show them all our cards, but to die instead?_

_We're already dead. We can't get any deader. For all we know, our real souls have already gone on._

_I don't think we should show them either. I can't see how it will help. They will aid us in any case, with repairs and supplies. We don't need to ingratiate ourselves._

_They're trying to make a decision, they want all the facts, we have some of the facts... why not?_

_Think about it. Think about what they will do with these facts. They will be determined to save the other systems in the area._

_What other systems? What are we standing up for here? Where are we?_

_We're on the outer edge here, so there isn't much, but there is one populated outpost. Gerat Prime._

_What's there that we care about? That they might care about? Is it even ours?_

_No; it's not Idiran, it's not Chelgrian, it's not anyone's really. That's the point. It's untouched and it wants to stay that way._

_Not exactly untouched. The Tannigar Soliloquy got there first; then the Culture did some cleaning up a century or so ago._

_Even more of a reason not to let them get their filthy hands all over it._

_We should let them all die, instead, in fear and pain, not ever knowing what hit them, not having the chance to be saved?_

_Of course. How could we do otherwise? To uproot their society would destroy them no less. This way they at least get to go to their gods, if they have any._

_What if they don't have any?_

_Then that was their choice too, and we should respect it._

_I can see where he's coming from. They did put on record, three millennia ago, that they were never to be contacted again._

_And what's their life-span? Pretty normal for a pan-human species, isn't it? None of those people will be alive now; the current generation didn't make that choice._

_But their ancestors did. Their societies did, or their ancient forebears. It is their choice, the only choice we have on record for them. We must respect it._

_They didn't make that choice knowing that they were going to die._

_But they made that choice knowing they were going into isolation, and that isolation has risks._

_I can't believe that we are arguing about this. How can we even think of making any other determination? How did we feel at having our own traditions compromised by others?_

_I liked it just fine, actually._

_Alas, as I believe you youngsters like to say, you're outvoted._

We have no extant footage of the fate of Hanjul. We did not in any way see it be damaged, let alone destroyed by the wavefront. We were too busy holding the ship together.

We did not see any Idirans panic in that very stoic way of theirs, or either Idiran or Medjel being ripped in two and scream as half of them was consumed by the encroaching darkness.

_We are united. We can make our report now._

_I'm sure we will regret this when we have to cohabit the dark emptiness between the galaxies with the Culture all the way to the next major cloud. But I submit to the majority._

"We have no footage of the fate of Hanjul. We apologise for the omission. We would love to help you, but we believe in the self-determination of all peoples, and the determination of the civilisation occupying Gerat Prime is clearly that they desire no further contact whatsoever for any reason.

We hope that you will respect their wishes. Yours sincerely, the collective currently operating the vessel known as the _Original Sinner_ , previously of the Hanjul colony."

"Well, thanks, I guess. You're sure we can't send a repair crew over to take a look?"

"We thank you for your kind offer, but we are certain."

__\----_ _

Ketori Silverfish burst from his suit, harsh Idiran edges shrugging off the heavy material, and began to sprint towards the control interface.

Idiran vessels were built for manual control over any artificial interference. The Chelgrians might have managed to invade his suit systems, but he was betting that they hadn't managed to lock down the ship's manual overrides.

He swung his three-legged body into the seat, feeling the interface locking around him; for a moment he was seized with a sudden panic, that the chair was under their control after all and it was slowly crushing the life out of him, but he fought the urge and remained in control.

This Idiran body was much better in hard vacuum than any other that he'd worn over the years, but the unbearable cold was already beginning to set in. He forced himself to concentrate on the control board, running practised fingers over the interface, setting up a communications channel.

Downloading the footage of Hanjul, and the carnage that he needed to show them had happened there. Slipping his report in the side of it, in a way he hoped - no, he knew - only _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ would pick up.

He could feel the outer layers of his body dying in the grasping cold, the complex circulatory system shutting down methodically to preserve the remaining oxygen in his bloodstream for the essential systems that he was using; his fingers, his eyes, his brain.

A hissing sound intruded on his consciousness, as he made the finishing touches and sent his desperate missive. He was preparing to gather himself and send whatever this ship could receive of his brain-state for the edification of his backup, when he noticed that it was becoming warmer.

"Intruder," boomed a speaker - and he realised that if their words were getting through to his exposed form, then there must be air returning, although the shutting down of his outer layers and the defensive mechanisms his body had deployed against the vacuum had prevented him from feeling the return of pressure.

"Please don't kill yourself," said another voice, through the same system but distinctive in tone. "We can come to some arrangement, I'm sure."

"Pressure should be stable now. You can breathe again." A third, perhaps?

He took an experimental breath. Still cold, still thin, burning through his throat and lungs - but about the right kind of atmosphere, all the same, and surprisingly welcome.

His body reported damage in many places, but he was still alive and likely to remain that way.

"Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?" he growled in an appropriate Idiran register, mimicking the language they were using; despite the target of his desperate communique, it appeared they were still taking him for the Idiran he was posing as.

"Perhaps you can tell us," said the voice, sounding strangely lost and alone. "We are the fragmentary mind-records of a variety of Chelgrian military personnel, uploaded into the systems of the _Original Sinner_ , an apparently Idiran intersystem shuttle. We believe you to be responsible for this. Also, we'd like to discuss your recent transmission."

"You must recant," broke in a subtly different voice, much more like the original. "You will have done untold damage, releasing the evidence of Hanjul's destruction. Your people are sure to meddle in the interdicted world soon to approach the barrier if they believe that destruction like Hanjul's will come to it and all its people."

"They deserve their own self-determination," tried a more conciliatory tone. "Admit that the footage is constructed, and no-one needs to get hurt."

The sheer absurdity of the situation suddenly crept up on Ketori. "Make me," he grinned, in a very un-Idiran fashion.

What were they going to do to him that he hadn't already done to himself? He idly checked out the damage to his body - surprisingly little, given how rough he'd been with it - and settled back for the ride.

\----

Lenak's tail swished uneasily out of the back of his chair.

It had been okay at first. All the pan-humans were very nice. He sometimes couldn't understand all the words they were using, even though he prided himself on his excellent grasp of Marain, but they were always happy to slow down and explain things again for him. He understood this was very serious, and he tried to think of how he should be representing his people, not just his own opinions.

But now... now he couldn't take it any more.

"Bathroom break," he explained apologetically, springing from his chair and slipping out of the room before any of them could challenge him, before anyone could make him feel small or stupid or out of place. He was pretty sure they wouldn't, that he'd have a few moments to collect himself and work out what he wanted to be doing.

Talking - thinking - it wasn't what he was built for, there was so much that was unclear, that they just didn't _know_.

He wasn't really thinking where he was going, but it was no surprise to him that he showed up at the bay where his best friend lived. _Smile If You Missed Me_ knew how he felt, knew how he was frustrated, trapped out here trying to create a simulacrum of meaning for his people, trying to help them forget their past.

There wasn't anything as inelegant as a hatch or a gangway on the side of _Smile If You Missed Me_. The ship was a tiny, but perfectly formed, single unit of pure force projection; the knife missile, writ large, and rated for interstellar engagements. _Just like I should have been_ , thought Lenak bitterly. An equally undersized avatar popped into existence beside him; Taaken-Morrit, with the form of a slimline, streamlined drone, floated at about eye-level and exuded a hopeful green glow of friendliness.

"I'm sick of their talking," Lenak admitted. "Talking and talking and talking."

"They're no better in my head," commiserated Taaken-Morrit _._ "There's some kind of argument about a signal _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ picked up. Except it couldn't have, apparently, because this lumbering continental plate masquerading as a ship would have heard it too, and supposedly it didn't. Yours truly is stuck behind so many of its fields that I just wouldn't have, and apparently _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ is a liar anyway..."

"I thought you people were above that," said Lenak sadly.

"Hah! If only." Taaken-Morrit cycled red for a minute in good humour.

"Want to do something stupid?" Lenak asked, suddenly.

"Always," replied Taaken-Morrit. "Want to climb on board?"

Lenak nodded his assent, and was immediately displaced; there was only a tiny nook inside _Smile If You Missed Me_ , but it wasn't his first visit, and claustrophobia had been comprehensively bred out of the Medjel race some time ago.

"So," he said. "It was all going okay until the pyramid showed up."

"Meriset, huh? The Homomdan explorer?" _Smile If You Missed Me_ didn't bother with manifesting Taaken-Morrit within its own skin; it just spoke through the walls, giving Lenak the strangely pleasant illusion of being located somewhere in its chest cavity.

"Yeah. She showed up with some avatar of someone, Janesh he called himself."

"Ugh. That'll be _Forget-Me-Not_ 's. Nasty piece of work."

"Anyway, Brianna said he had to leave, and he wasn't happy about that, and then... I don't know. I wasn't the only non-pan-human in the room any more."

"Hah, and there went your curiosity vote?"

"Not just that," insisted Lenak. "She... she spoke much better Marain than me. I mean, I'm good, but they're getting really technical in there sometimes, and I get lost. I'd been asking, but when she didn't have to, it's like, I'm letting the tribe down or something?"

"Yeah," commiserated _Smile If You Missed Me_. "So. You said we were going to do something stupid?"

"Well, I was thinking," said Lenak. "They all seem to think all you guys are too busy to bother, but... can't we go out there and find out some things for ourselves?"

" _Look Out, He's Behind You_ has us all on lockdown," said _Smile If You Missed Me_ , "in case we get it into our heads to do our own rescue mission. But, I've been thinking of doing a little extracurricular excursion ever since that supposed message came through and me too buried here to get hold of it. And I think I've got it figured out."

"Yeah?" said Lenak, excitedly.

"Well, it's not like Lookie can actually stop me, once I get going," confided _Smile If You Missed Me_. "And he's a big softy really. I reckon if I look sufficiently determined, he'll just let me out anyway. And I'm not sure he trusts anyone enough to send them out to grab me. _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ and complement are probably on our side anyway, y'see, and it's not like I can displace a whole bunch of folks on my own, or that I would without them having homes to go to. It'll be a bit tougher with you on board, but I wouldn't dream of not inviting you along for the ride, buddy."

"I could get off if it helps you," offered Lenak.

"No way. I'm going to need the company. So. How's about it? I don't want to actually kidnap you..."

"No, no," protested Lenak. "I'll be fine. It'll be fun. What are we going to do when we're out there?"

"Take a look around. See if we can find anything in the path, that's going to hit before the Gerat system gets affected, and watch that. Maybe go and play with _Original Sinner_ , see if we can get the upper hand for whoever's sending us info from in there, assuming _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ isn't making it up."

"Sounds good," Lenak reassured it.

"Right. Got to suit you up, I'm afraid," apologised _Smile If You Missed Me._ Lenak nodded, and stood, trying to clamp down on his tail's nervous swishing as invisible fields manoeuvred protective gear in position around him.

It was a really good thing that Medjel couldn't get claustrophobic.

\----

"So," said _Failed Your Risk Assessement_ , still just out of the walls. "I believe you wanted to contribute?"

"Go fuck your mother," replied Udreth. She had cleaned herself up and calmed herself down, and had taken to morosely flicking through data feeds and half-heartedly monitoring a stream of Briana's council proceedings, occasionally contributing her side of the argument.

"I am afraid she is a little on the large side for that to be plausible," replied _Failed Your Risk Assessment,_ in a tone of apologetic politeness. "May I make a practical, constructive suggestion, despite your insistence on treating me as if I am your antagonist?"

"Go on, then," muttered Udreth, with bad grace.

"If we do rescue your people," explained _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ , "which is an outcome I am still very hopeful for and am pursuing with all my considerable resource, by the way; if we do rescue your people, and by that I mean all your people, not just _your_ people, I'm sure you'll understand..."

"Get to the point," insisted Udreth irritably.

"We will need certain information that is difficult to gather with the requisite haste, especially given the advanced monitoring technologies that some of your, ahem, the Kingdoms possess, and the requirement of absolute non-contact before we finally come to the only acceptable decision."

"You want to interrogate me about my planet," surmised Udreth, "and how not to scare the horses. You already have files from the last time we were down there, of course, so you know most of it."

"I expect that the use of the Shield and the victory it permitted the Community will have changed matters somewhat."

"A bit," shrugged Udreth. "People are people. You know their tech level. You must have a billion different programs suited to pan-humans of about that kind of cultural sophistication. If anything, _my_ people will get on better than expected, so there's nothing to fear."

"Still," attempted _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ , "surely you want the best for your people, and to tune their introduction appropriately? We should have plenty of space to set aside for them on the _Look Out, He's Behind You_ , especially if some of the Kingdoms types are happy to head off into virtual environments, or at least one culture is willing to integrate..."

"It's not like the fake plastic trees on the _Look Out, He's Behind You_ will be any more real for being made of matter anyway," replied Udreth, with more bitterness than perhaps she was intending.

"Ah," said _Failed Your Risk Assessment,_ "but you could help make them more 'real', by providing us with the requisite parameters in good time."

"Half a week isn't 'good time'," she countered.

"It is, regrettably, as good as we are able to manage," apologised _Failed Your Risk Assessment_.

Udreth relented slightly. "What do you want me to do, anyway?"

"Ideally," said _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ , then paused, as if reluctant to complete its statement. "Ideally, I - or one of my compatriots, if you would find that more amenable, as they have distinctly less complicity in your removal from your previous precarious situation - would take a copy of your mind-state, and use the information therein to construct the environments. We can do it in consultation instead, but it is much less efficient..."

"Don't you have some kind of, you know, deadly serious taboo about that?" complained Udreth.

" _Without permission,_ dear Chamelian, of course we do. That is why, you see, I am attempting to carefully and delicately solicit your permission, in such a way as there is no particular pressure on you to do so, except perhaps that you might be bringing to bear on yourself..."

"Bollocks," replied Udreth forcefully. "You miserable fuckers study us all the time. You know exactly which buttons to press."

"So you will volunteer?" asked _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ sweetly.

"Who are your _compatriots_ then?" she asked. "Like hell am I giving _you_ my head to play with. You didn't have anyone stationed with you back in the day though."

"I was, regrettably, not quite as massive and heavily armed back then," replied _Failed Your Risk Assessment._ "Do you want a formal introduction? I have three fine gentlemen on board for your delectation: I am afraid they are all less well mannered than I, as they are Rapid Offensive Units, and you know how they can get sometimes. _Jailbreaker_ is probably the most sociable, if a little prone to indulging a flamboyant streak; _Should Have Thought Again_ is all business, you should be perfectly safe in any of their hands but I suppose it is the least likely to get up to any good-natured ribbing about it later. Then there's _Poor Impulse Control_ , who would be a terrible choice for hopefully quite obvious reasons."

"You love me really," commented a second voice, which was presumably _Poor Impulse Control_ displaying its titular virtues.

"Oh, forget it," sighed Udreth. "You planned this all along and I just walked right into it. Go on, climb aboard; have a good root around in there. I hope you expire in a really embarrassing fashion."

"Thank you," replied _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ pleasantly. "You'll forgive me if I don't return the complement; for some reason I actually quite like you."

Udreth made an unconvinced noise. "Do I have to do anything?"

"Not at all," _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ assured her, "I'm already having a delightful conversation with your charming neural lace and it should all be sorted soon. Kick back, relax, and enjoy your meeting. Oh, and if you could convince them that I _am_ telling the truth and that treacherous bucket of bolts that we're unfortunately dependant upon for the time being (but could do with a name change and a personality transplant) has covered up the signal from the _Original Sinner_ somehow, I'd be grateful."

Udreth rolled her eyes non-committally, and turned her attention back to the screen.

\----

_I told you it was a stupid idea._

_No, you didn't. You told me I wasn't capable of it._

_And I was right. We can't stall them for long. You should have known they would know his face better than that._

_It's not his face we got wrong, it's his voice patterns, the way he speaks._

_Or perhaps it is just hubris. Perhaps they cannot admit to themselves that their own agent could lie to them._

_We don't have much time. Their massive craft has launched one of its small fighter vessels. In a showy matter, at that; we wouldn't have seen it if it had been hiding._

_They wouldn't have believed us anyway. You've seen how resilient he is. They know he wouldn't break._

_That should make it more convincing; that he would be demonstrating genuine remorse._

_Are they even capable of remorse? They make the right noises sometimes, but they don't know what it means to sacrifice. They have all the heaven they can stomach; they don't have to work to attain it._

_What are we going to do with him now, anyway?_

_If we'd had anything like their technology, we could have read out his mind-state. Even if we'd had our own. It's a pity the Idirans don't care for that sort of thing._

_They do in the right place for it, but not for Idiran minds, not on a minor ship like this one. If he'd been posing as a Medjel we'd have cracked him ages ago, there's a decent debriefing suite in the medical bay for them._

_No, but really, what are we going to do with him? We might be able to wipe out some of the recent memories._

_Can you do it safely? Breaking him now would be worse than what we already did; they might not forgive us if he's not relatively intact._

_You don't realise what you're dealing with, do you? The Culture are not to be messed with lightly. Fucking with one of their citizens already has us over our heads, not just up to our midlimbs._

_It's hardly a civilian, and it's nothing compared to what the Idirans would have done if they'd found him. They're not that sensitive - are they?_

_They deliberately vary their responses to make sure nobody is ever quite sure about the answer to that question._

_I don't want to die! I mean, I'm already dead, but not out here, not like this! This whole screw-up is hardly the most glorious thing we've been involved in..._

_Killed in battle is killed in battle, son. We did all we could. We shouldn't be ashamed of that; we were acting on our principles._

_Acting on_ your _principles, anyway._

_Yours too - out voted, remember? Call it a cautionary tale about the dangers of democratic decision making._

_We don't have much time. Should we try to wipe him or shouldn't we?_

_We might as well give it a go. How is it going to hurt us any more?_

_I'll get the remote manipulator to move him over to the other medical bay, it's better set up for this; then I'll give it a go. No promises._

_Why are we trusting you? You wanted us to share with the Culture anyway! Won't she just expose us all, for her Culture comrades?_

_Did you suddenly become competent in the area while I wasn't looking? No? Then you had better trust me with it, because you don't have any better options._

_We're watching you. We might have to rely on you, but we don't have to like it._

\----

" _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ tells me it's our lucky day," reported _Smile If You Missed Me_ to his captive audience.

 _I like lucky days_ , replied Lenak, muffled down to a subvocal interface in his safety gear. _We found something to observe then?_

"Rogue planet. Bit of a glorious name for a tiny lump of space rock that wouldn't look out of place in an asteroid belt, but it's in the way and that's good enough for us. _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ is sending _Jailbreaker_ out to back us up, appropriately."

 _Back us up? Is there trouble?_ asked Lenak nervously.

"No; well, there's the Idiran crate, but that's not going to cause me to blink, even. But tensions are pretty high and everyone's second-guessing everyone else; _Jailbreaker_ 's not perfect, being part of _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ 's complement, and I'm suspicious because I threatened to cut a hole in _Look Out, He's Behind You_ to escape, but two of us is better than one."

 _And there's me,_ asserted Lenak.

"Yeah, but, no offence, you get fed whatever I show you. You know I wouldn't lie to you, but no-one who doesn't trust me is going to trust in that either."

 _Oh,_ replied Lenak, feeling very small.

"Aw, don't be like that," _Smile If You Missed Me_ tried to comfort him. "I like having you with me. You hardly ever take time out to pay a social call any more."

 _Got made leader of the tribe,_ explained Lenak. _Harder to drop out without causing trouble._

"Never mind; you're here now, and this is going to be good. You can see okay from there?"

According to Lenak's visual senses, he was hanging in space at approximately the position that _Smile If You Missed Me_ had taken up. The thinning of stars in one plane had become an oppressive darkness; nothing in that direction, according to the usual messengers of photons and their friends, had ever existed. Lenak concentrated on the small, tumbling rock, which in reality wasn't so clearly illuminated, but _Smile If You Missed Me_ had picked it out in about the colours it would be showing to a nice wide-spectrum glow in Lenak's range of colour vision.

For a timeless moment, nothing seemed to happen; _Smile If You Missed Me_ turned on a false-colour line along the edge, but Lenak found it distracting, so it turned that display off again. Now nothing was even creeping towards the tiny planetoid... until it started to stretch.

"The front hasn't even quite hit it yet," noted _Smile If You Missed Me._ "I guess there are some forces that precede it."

The planetoid stretched obscenely into an elongated oval, its rocky surface grinding and rearranging, sprouting cracks and plumes of debris kicked up by the titanic stresses it was experiencing. Suddenly, part of it appeared to slide through another, tying the poor thing practically in a knot; surface pulverised, it twisted and convulsed in violent death-throes as it was gradually swallowed up by the encroaching phenomenon.

"Well," said _Smile If You Missed Me_ , with rather less genuine cheer than previously, "that's that, then. I guess we should get arguing."

 _What does it mean?_ asked Lenak warily. _Will they all die, like the ones on Hanjul?_

"Yes," replied _Smile If You Missed Me,_ with uncharacteristic sadness. "Their planet will twist, the atmosphere ripped off, the seas will boil; we can't leave them to that fate. I might be built to kill, Lenak, but I only do it for a good reason; this heartless, soulless natural disaster shit kills me as much as it does you, kid."

 _Surely they'll believe us now,_ insisted Lenak.

"I don't know," admitted _Smile If You Missed Me_. "I know that _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ is getting ready to snatch and grab into storage if it really has to, but it doesn't have the mass to do it right; if it's just us out here, or even everyone but the _Look Out, He's Behind You_ , we're getting a planetload of confused uploads at best. Stacked heads in crates. They deserve better than that."

 _What's_ Look Out, He's Behind You _'s problem? He's always been kind to us,_ asked Lenak, baffled.

"An unhealthy respect for individual determination, kid. And not really understanding we can't necessarily expect them to be bound by the decisions of their ancestors. I don't know. Maybe the Chelgrian talk of letting them find their own heaven has got to it. Maybe it had a bad experience in Contact one time, and that's why it's out here, and that's why it doesn't want to 'meddle' if it can find a reason to get out of it. Don't know. Just a theory."

 _What are we going to do now?_ asked Lenak.

"Oops. Looks like the Chelgrians have released a massively fake scene of one of _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ 's old buddies, that they've got on board. _Jailbreaker_ 's heading over to menace them a bit, asking whether we want to come with."

 _Yeah, let's_ , replied Lenak. _They're just a wallowing tub, right?_

"Yeah, no threat to us. It's only a short hop; we'll be there before you know we've gone."

\----

It had been much simpler in the olden days, when he could have just chomped down on a poison tooth.

There were a lot of elaborate safeguards in the Idiran nervous system, before you started on the ones their Chelgrian engineering genius had implanted on his way through. Oh, he could burn up quite successfully if he got the right signals through, the Idiran was wired for that as well. But burning _out_ was what he was after. If he just wanted to destroy himself, he should have done that earlier.

Now they were trying to cover their tracks, the bastards, and he didn't think they should get away with that.

The tiny relay in his head wasn't exactly the highest-bandwidth upload device or the strongest of transmitters; it was designed to be well-hidden as a first and overriding intention, and anything it could still do after that was a bonus. If he was subject to jamming, the thought had been, it was already too late. No-one had expected him to end up in this kind of situation, least of all himself.

He hadn't even known there were a bunch of degraded Chelgrian personality matrices in storage until he'd gone looking.

But surely he could do it. They were damaged, and Idirans were smarter than them, and he was pretty smart too; it was getting exhausting just chasing the tail of his memories around while the engineer who wasn't really a surgeon but certainly thought she was had a good rummage around in there, looking for how to shut off all the terrible things they had tried to do to him over the last day or so. It would be worth it - it would all be worth it - if he could finish his gambit, if they'd got his first message and believed it, if he could convince them to rescue anything else in the path of the storm.

It was all about what he was willing to gamble. He only had one shot. How close were the other ships by now?

No external information; just his gut feelings. Would they have come for him? Surely _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ had the package by now, would have snuck someone in as close as it could get. Good old _Poor Impulse Control_ , maybe, or _Jailbreaker_ , if he was going for the subtle approach. _Jailbreaker_ always liked subtle - well, subtle for a Rapid Offensive Unit, anyway. They would have come for him.

He unloaded all the remaining strength in the body and sent the strongest signal he could muster.

_Damn us all! I've lost him!_

_Lost him? What do you mean, lost him?_

_He's dead? You killed him? You killed their citizen?_

_Dead and gone. Burnt right out._

_Well, that's it. Say your prayers, everyone. Hope the ancestors are listening, and that they're in a good mood..._

_Don't be a defeatist, maybe we can run._

_We're flanked by two of them. They've just dropped out of hiding. There are probably more still hiding. Rapid offensive units. Game over._

\----

Inside every vehicle as large as the _Look Out, He's Behind You_ , as much as they often pretend to have one outward identity, there is more than one Mind.

Very occasionally, they disagree with each other.

Mind One, for want of a better description, caught the faint echo of a second transmission from _Original Sinner_ , and moved to hide it away from the others. Once upon a time, Mind One had destroyed an entire planet. It had needed destroying. The danger of certain runaway technologies could not be overstated. It had attempted to rescue the populace, but they had already suffered from contagion; their mind-states irretrievably held copies of the original virus. They could not be allowed to spread.

So it had killed them, every one.

It knew this planet was different. But the Tannigar Soliloquy had been here, too. They had left here, too, a gift that Restoria had to clean up, some millenia later. And the interdict was in no uncertain terms. It was not certain. It could not be certain. But it thought it could read, there, between the lines, a better reason to leave this planet alone than simply the outdated wishes of some long-dead inhabitants. And they were in such a precarious situation. They could not allow any compromise of this vessel.

But there - there was that annoying gnat, _Smile If You Missed Me,_ the irreverent Light Offensive Unit that had never killed so much as a fly.

It did not understand the stakes here. It was attempting to transmit to the other Minds. And it knew all of the dirty tricks. It wasn't content with any of Mind One's acknowledgements, and the others were getting close; they were getting suspicious...

Very occasionally, the two other Minds on a General Systems Vehicle will have to quarantine the other, for the greater good.

Mind One attempts to explain; but it is outvoted.

\----

"There are easier things we could do for you, you know," said the man.

Hannine stood her ground. "This information is valuable to you. The sensor relays I can get; the position of heavily patrolled and lightly patrolled areas..."

"I'm only thinking of you, doll," he said. "You don't know if this will work out or not. I can give you a sure bet on another hostage; I happen to know the fruit-pickers nabbed a girl this time, she didn't go down easy, was attacking them - enemy combatant, you see."

She tried to keep the reaction out of her face, but she wasn't as good as lying as he was at spotting the untruth.

"So you do know her. You girls seem to always know everyone."

"I..." Hannine was lost for words. What could she say? She'd laid all her cards on the table just to get this far. She hadn't kept anything back for a counteroffer, for an extra offer.

"Y'see," he said, in a manner that was probably supposed to be avuncular, "I don't think you're gonna get any satisfaction from the stars; just maybe a load of danger for me and mine. And I'd sell you that right for the stuff you've got, no questions, but I know if you go sour on the deal - 'cos it didn't get you anything - you can go out and make a mess of it, or maybe we have to kill you, and that's just not business. That's why I'm switching my offer, darling. The original's still on the table. But I reckon you want to take the new one."

She stood there, numb, thinking between them. Neither Velia or Udreth would thank her for 'rescuing' them, not like this, she had realised when she embarked on this path. Both of them could stand on their own two feet and - she'd thought, before Udreth came out with all of that about the people from beyond the stars and them taking her back - held the Community above any of them, especially themselves.

Velia hadn't betrayed them. Udreth... Udreth might have. Or was she just thinking that, that ugly thought, because the man had planted it in her mind - because it was the path of least resistance, because she could guarantee a result from that direction?

There was an odd sound, like the very air collapsing in on itself; almost an explosion, an implosion, a _whumph_ of air. Something outside her experience.

Right in front of her, the man had gone. Vanished. Disappeared. As if he'd never been there.

Was it some new kind of weapon? She looked around for cover.

/discontinuity/

\----

They were all out there now; the offensive units scattered around the outer edge of the system, ready to watch the show.

 _Must Have Been The Drugs_ and _Empty Hanger Syndrome_ from the bowels of _Look Out, He's Behind You_ had joined _Smile If You Missed Me_ , although neither were holding a passenger; _Jailbreaker, Should Have Thought Again_ and _Poor Impulse Control_ from the still-wary _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ , which was staying well away from the horizon itself.

The superlifter complement, _The Brains Of The Outfit, Nice To See You Too_ and _Just Visiting_ were spaced evenly around the planet, co-ordinating the displacement of the population to the hastily prepared reception areas aboard _Look Out, He's Behind You._ Transmitting the plans with a weary sense of duty, _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ had declined to be smug. Instead, it had started work on a new Very Fast Picket within itself. Mind One would have a new home soon.

From his ringside seat, Lenak watched anxiously. He had got _Smile If You Missed Me_ to paint the otherwise invisible line again, after an eternity of waiting with no apparent progress; now at least he could watch it draw inexorably closer, especially if he looked away for a bit and then looked back.

It was almost touching the system's debris cloud now. But a funny thing was happening. Whilst the rogue planet he had watched had twisted itself around, elongated, broken into pieces, gone into the most elaborate spasms of planetary agony that could be conceived of... the dust was just disappearing.

There was a terrible sinking feeling in his heart as he watched the invisible barrier consume the outer reaches of the Gerat system... peacefully. Calmly. As if it had never existed, save that everything else was the same. Orbits were not perturbed. Half an asteroid disappeared before the other, but the other just stayed until its time to go...

The outer planets of the Gerat system. Surely their atomsphere would be affected, would bleed off when there was only half of the planet left; but no, they also went gently into the good night.

"We've been had," said _Smile If You Missed Me_ , at the same time as Lenak had just formulated the thought and was about to share it.

 _But how? You..._ and Lenak trembled slightly around the muzzle. _You said you'd never lie to me_.

The anger of _Smile If You Missed Me_ was white-hot and incandescent. "I. Did. Not. Lie." It paused as if thinking, to give Lenak time to catch up. "It was... oh mother time and all her little children, it was you, wasn't it, _Jailbreaker_?"

"I hope you enjoyed the light show," replied _Jailbreaker_ , for the benefit of _Smile If You Missed Me'_ s passenger. "I was right proud of it too. Convincing, huh?"

 _Smile If You Missed Me_ charged its weapon systems. It apologised to its passenger. "I am so incredibly sorry about this," it said. And then it went faster than it was supposed to go with a live creature on board. _Jailbreaker_ had technically better reactions, but it was immensely caught off guard by the swift violence; it had thought that _Smile If You Missed Me_ would at least protect its passenger.

Drawing up behind _Jailbreaker_ abruptly, practically sticking an effector through its field shell, _Smile If You Missed Me_ carved "Liar" on the other ship's hull, neatly burnt into its primary Mind-housing unit, in such a way that left the stunned onlookers in no doubt that it could have put a serious hole through the casing instead.

Then _Smile If You Missed Me_ meekly requested an emergency medical displacement for its passenger, took cover behind a handy moon against the possibility of immediate retaliation from _Jailbreaker_ , and stopped responding to calls for a while. _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ picked up the battered shell of a Medjel from its inner compartment, and stuck it in the best medical facilities they had available, announcing that Lenak would probably regrow and suffer only minor disorientation around the moment of impact, probably.

The border advanced.

It became clear that _Smile If You Missed Me_ was not moving, as the other craft watching the border passed it. _Should Have Thought Again_ and _Empty Hanger Syndrome_ tentatively attempted to extend their fields and perform a rescue, but _Smile If You Missed Me_ was far from defenceless; although it would not respond to any attempts at communication, there was a vicious energy release at their attempts to touch the hunkered-down vessel.

There was a frantic discussion; if the negotiations of the past days had been fast-paced, the Minds had never worked faster than in trying to find a solution to the problem of rescuing their stranded companion. Not even _Jailbreaker_ held the vessel's actions against it, although Mind Two of _Look Out, He's Behind You_ was outraged over the treatment of the ship's 'pet' Medjel. _The Brains Of The Outfit_ and _Just Visiting_ broke orbit around Gerat Prime to enact the best plan that could be devised in the time remaining; _Nice To See You Too_ refused to participate, so _Obvious Distraction_ attempted to take its place.

The two superlifters had just got a grip on the Light Offensive Unit when it powered up its engines for one last push. With a scream of terrible anguish, containing "Let go of me" and "I can't live with you" and "I'm not sure I can live with myself" and several nasty payloads for _Failed Your Risk Assessment_ and its complement, _Smile If You Missed Me_ broke free from its would-be saviours and dived straight for the barrier.

It crossed; stopped; turned, returned to the very edge; and powered entirely down.

 _Just Visiting_ pointed out that they could, in fact, now rescue it, once the superlifters had a few fractions of a second to recover from the crazy spin that they had been left with when their target had torn free; _The Brains Of The Outfit_ maintained that the other vessel had now made its intentions quite clear.

Silently, they watched the border swallow up _Smile If You Missed Me_ , as if it had never been.

\----

Her six limbs straining in silent precision, she stalked her prey through the trees.

It wasn't meant to end like this. Maybe it hadn't. She still saw the others, from time to time. Hannine still led their people, as much as anyone did; they looked up to her example, those who had chosen to live as they always lived, in one of the 'real' glorified parks that _Look Out, He's Behind You_ had thoughtfully provided. Velia had integrated. She swanned around calling herself Gerat-Primesa Velia Landwalker Jania da' Merhinos, and doing all the things that Udreth had got bored of over a century ago.

Far off, she could hear the leader of the tribe, calling his position. It was strange to be led, and by a male at that.

Maybe she would challenge him, soon. She struck quickly and decisively, catching the youngster off-guard as he heeded the position-call and attempted to orient himself. He screeched and struggled as she pinned him, then subsided quickly and hung on to her for dear life as she prised him from the branch and held him over the abyss.

"Learn to be faster," she warned him.

Maybe that was, after all, the only thing left to learn.

\----

The _Look Out, He's Behind You_ sped on through the endless night, slowly accelerating, broadcasting before it a warning to the far galaxy it hoped to seek the shelter of, and to eventually find the answer to the inexorable barrier that followed on behind.


End file.
